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Saturday, April 11, 2015

Netiquette Standards For Social Media - Via Netiquette IQ

Must of my writing and many of my blogs focus on email. But Netiquette extends into all Internet communication. So from time to time, I post something from my book, my own thoughts or pertinent articles reflecting other forms of electronic communication, primarily social media. Below is a solid article to this point. Enjoy its content!

Good Netiquette to all!
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If you’re going to use Twitter,
Facebook, and other networks as a part of your original content campaign – and
you must! – do it right with these social media netiquette standards.

Fact: The world’s all-time-great
master of manners had the last name “Post.” Coincidence? No way.

“Manners are a sensitive awareness
of the feelings of others,” wrote Emily Post a century before the Internet. “If
you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter what fork you use.”

For our purposes, the fork is
promoting your company on social media. And you need awareness of the feelings
of others to pull it off with any real impact.

When you post a link, question,
quote, or video, the action isn’t taking place in a vacuum. Without a receptive
audience, your efforts will be a waste of time. This goes for all content, of
course – if you’re not writing for somebody, you’re writing for nobody, right?
– but the challenge is magnified on social platforms precisely because you’re
approaching potential clients and customers on their own stomping grounds.

So, what does this mean for your
content marketing?

Let me start with an example.

The concept of social media
netiquette reminds of my days running field operations for political
candidates. Our campaigns placed great emphasis on meeting voters in their
neighborhoods and initiating authentic conversations about the issues
– conversations that we had to guide by staying on message – culminating in
asks like the following:

Can we count on your vote?

How about a yard sign?

Would you be willing to sign on as a
public supporter, with your name listed on the candidate’s website?

Interested in contributing to our
campaign so we can keep knocking on doors and making phone calls?

Do these asks look familiar at all?
Yes. You know them as calls to action:

Please read this post!

Please share this link!

Sign up for our email newsletter and
receive this free guide!

Follow us on Twitter! Like us on
Facebook!

To get the responses you’re looking
for on social media, you have to conduct yourself like a volunteer canvasser.
What do I mean by this? Please read on!

5
Social Media Netiquette Guidelines

1.
Start by Knocking on the Right Doors in the Right Neighborhoods

Whether in politics or marketing,
you win by mobilizing your base and moving on to expansion of your
core audience with data analytics, common sense, and good instincts.

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First, make sure you’re on the best
social network for the task at hand, and make sure you’re tailoring your posts
to the people you want to engage. In other words, avoid sharing irreverent
videos on LinkedIn; avoid posting dry, jargony white papers (or pictures of
dry, jargony white papers) on Snapchat; avoid Tweeting and Facebooking the
exact same links using duplicate language.

2.
Exercise Appropriate Conduct

We once had a couple of volunteers –
more like “fans of free food,” in this case – who were canvassing shirtless and
smoking cigarettes while walking down the street on a hot summer’s day. We
found this out because a supporter in the neighborhood called us at the
campaign headquarters.

On Election Day.

In a close race.

Which we lost.

Don’t be those shirtless dudes
smoking cigarettes while knocking on decent people’s doors – your company is
asking for customers’ time and business! This is Social Media Netiquette 101,
if not Life 101: Be nice and polite. Don’t use foul language, get in arguments
with customers who might have a complaint, hijack and domineer comment threads,
violate their privacy, or post offensive stuff.

Remember: You’re a guest in their
networks – they can kick you out at any time.

Social netiquette: Don’t be those shirtless dudes
smoking cigarettes while knocking on doors

Click To Tweet

3.
Talk AT? Talk TO? No – Talk With

This one is my personal favorite. It
was my mantra on those campaigns.

You gotta give people a reason to
engage.

Foster discussion with open-ended
posts on Facebook. Turn your social media presence into a give and take.

The more customers can participate
in your brand’s story, the better the chances they’ll be loyal and spread the word about what you’re up to.

One prized quality of killer content
is its capacity to impress people with authority, influence, and thought
leadership. But you can accomplish this – let alone convert site visitors into
customers – only by first earning people’s trust, admiration, and affinity.

4.
Don’t Outwear Your Welcome

Hell hath no fury like a voter who
gets multiple phone calls, mail pieces, and door knocks in the span
of, say, 12 hours. And if by some fluke this or something like it happens more
than a few times, the next volunteer to reach them will probably never be heard
from again, because the lasers shooting out of the voter’s eyes, combined with
the unfortunate fact that they’re breathing fire, will incinerate that poor kid
before he can even press the doorbell.

Such occurrences are a far cry,
though, from clogging up people’s Newsfeeds and Tumblrs with crap every 10
minutes. I mean, this goes back to Emily Post’s thoughts about “sensitive
awareness of the feelings of others”: Would you want to have one company you
follow pop up like a bad penny every time you log on to Facebook or look at
your Twitter timeline?

Use your social media tools wisely:
We love CoSchedule,
but even they can’t do all of the work for us. Monitor your post frequencies
and the corresponding metrics.

Space out your Tweets by at least a
half-hour, if possible, and use discretion and good judgement in selecting
posting times.

Keep Facebook posts to a couple per
day, unless you’re a publisher or have a compelling reason to do more.

For other social media services, give us a
call or send us an email, and we can share our advice for your
particular situation.

5.
Mix Discipline With Experimentation

Stick to a schedule or rotation, but be ready to pivot
strategies based on your analytics. Keeping simple rules of social media
netiquette in mind, have fun with your posts – in tandem with your business
blog, they represent a real chance to humanize your brand and have authentic
exchanges with current clients and future ones!

In addition to this blog, Netiquette IQ has a website with great
assets which are being added to on a regular basis. I have authored the
premiere book on Netiquette, “Netiquette IQ - A Comprehensive Guide to Improve,
Enhance and Add Power to Your Email". My new book, “You’re Hired! Super Charge
Your Email Skills in 60 Minutes. . . And Get That Job!” will be published soon
follow by a trilogy of books on Netiquette for young people. You can view my
profile, reviews of the book and content excerpts at:

If you would like to listen
to experts in all aspects of Netiquette and communication, try my radio show on
BlogtalkRadio
Additionally, I provide content for an online newsletter via paper.li. I
have also established Netiquette discussion groups with Linkedin and Yahoo. I am
also a member of the International Business Etiquette and Protocol Group and
Minding Manners among others. Further, I regularly consult for the Gerson
Lehrman Group, a worldwide network of subject matter experts and have been a
contributor to numerous blogs and publications.

Lastly, I
am the founder and president of Tabula
Rosa Systems, a company that provides “best of breed” products for network,
security and system management and services. Tabula Rosa has a new blog and Twitter site which offers great IT
product information for virtually anyone.